Saturday, 30 January 2010

Yesterday Hannah spent her first whole day away from me ever!! She went over to her grandma's house in the morning and we picked her up last night at 7 PM. She had a wonderful day! She took her keyboard with her so that grandma could give her her piano lesson, she did lots of dancing, drawing, playing and socialising with the other people who live nearby. My mum lives in a sheltered housing complex and runs the social club that they hold in the communal lounge, so Hannah helped her with the coffee afternoon and chatted to all the elderly ladies that came along.

Here are a couple of pictures grandma managed to snap of her during the day.

Today we have set her up with her own email account, and she has been practising writing email's and reading replies. Her spelling of the bigger words is more phonetic than accurate, but she is definitely getting there and I've been able to decipher all the misspelled words - for example she emailed me earlier to ask if we could go to 'Pooltins Parc' (Paultons Park) !!

Wednesday, 27 January 2010

Today Hannah and i spent the day on HMS Warrior in Portsmouth's Historic Dockyard on 2 Victorian Times workshops.

Hannah attended the workshops with 19 other home educated children age 4 - 7 and learnt about life as a Victorian sailor and Victorian toys.

The day started with a story about a cat called Jess who lived on The Warrior, the children then went on a hunt around the ship looking for Jess's kitten's who were all named after things they could find on board (Hammock, Mess, Cannon, Bell, Chain) and finally Jess in the galley!

Next they dressed up in Victorian costume and thought about the jobs the sailors would have done on the ship, and how they would have lived.

After a break for lunch we went back to learn about Victorian toys, and how they were designed to teach morals, manners and good behaviour, before finally making some toys of our own to take home and playing some Victorian games such as 'Farmers in the den'. Hannah thoroughly enjoyed the day and really learned a lot. She was very interested and involved in the group and it was lovely to see her gaining confidence in group and workshop situations.

Sunday, 24 January 2010

Hannah has been asking us over and over if we can take her to a farm, so today we packed a picnic and went over to Staunton Farm in Havant.

She was so excited , she fed all the animals, even the rather big Llama's, went all around the maze and gardens with daddy (while i enjoyed a lovely quiet Latte in the tea rooms) and even bumped into Auntie Anita and Uncle Andi there which was an extra special bonus!

The farm is really nice with plenty of friendly animals to pet, and lots of hens and cockerel's roaming around, a big wooden playground and a shop and tea room. It's a favourite place to visit for Hannah and she had a lovely day.

Friday, 22 January 2010

Yesterday Hannah's very hairy daddy had his legs waxed after raising over £1000 for the hospice he works for. St Wilfrid's Hospice in Chichester is a charitable trust and are always looking for ways to raise money to enable them to continue with the excellent physical, emotional and spiritual care of their patients, so when Dean rather carelessly commented one day that they would have to raise £1000 before he'd ever get his legs waxed they set to work!!

He was very brave during the waxing as it was obviously really painful - i don't think i'll ever forget the sound of the hairs being ripped out of his skin - but he did it, and we are very proud of him!!!

Tuesday, 19 January 2010

One of Hannah's Christmas presents from Grandad and Granny Heather (my dad and step-mum) was this beautiful keyboard.

Hannah loves music and has been wanting to learn an instrument for a while now so she was thrilled to receive such a great present. We arranged that my mum (who plays piano) would come over once a week to give Hannah a lesson and do some music theory with her, and her first lesson was today.

Hannah absolutely loved it!! She has already mastered the beginning of 'Lavender's Blue' and has practiced it all afternoon to play to daddy tonight, and she has been reading the theory notes that Grandma wrote for her as well.

Monday, 18 January 2010

This week Hannah said she would like to share a Katie Morag story and chose 'Katie Morag and the Riddles' by Mairi Hedderwick.

Katie Morag is in a terrible mood, and everything goes from bad to worse at home but also at school. Her tantrums get everyone in trouble with the teacher who gives them some tricky riddles for homework. Can Katie solve the riddles and get back in everyone's good books?

There are many, many Katie Morag stories, and also a website here with educational information to do with the books - useful and interesting :-)

An ordinary homeschooling day for us consists of some table time in the morning covering basic skills - reading, writing and maths, an afternoon activity such as art, craft or cooking and lots of playtime.

Today was one of those days, so Hannah started with her journal which we try to do everyday.

Last week in her work book she was learning about adding and subtracting using tens and ones columns, so today i wrote out a few pages of sums to remind her and make sure it had sunk in - it had!!

Then she did some writing practice as she is not so good at writing on the lines and keeping to size yet, she is getting there though!

Then she finished her second box of Bob Reading Books. These have been really useful as they have given her a lot of confidence and she was so proud today when she read to the end without any problems.

This was her favourite page, she now wants chickens in her bedroom so they can lay eggs in HER bed................... Errrm no!!

After lunch we went to the playground for some fresh air, Hannah spent most of the time galloping around on an imaginary horse, but did have a little play on the equipment as well.

On the way home we stopped off to get some plasticine as Hannah wanted to do some modeling and make some pictures.

She made a family, a giraffe and a fairy teacup and saucer.

She finished her day having a quiet time before bed listening to 'Five Go Adventuring Again' on story cd and looking at her pony books.